Archive for January 2009

Reverse Effect of Rank System

Aion’s Rank system was originally designed in order to stimulate RvR. However, it is hard to find such in Aion today. Rather than RvR, people are turning to other methods to boost their Abyss Points, and continuing to use such methods in order to maintain their rank; occurrences which developers clearly didn’t have in mind in the first place.

<Examples>

1. Pre-arranged killing between Asmodians and Elyos ‘Abusing the system’ and farming of the fortress guards – “Guard farm”‘ in order to become a high-ranker

Considering that these often lead to other problems as well, the problems that Aion’s Rank System face are quite serious.

Separation of zones doesn’t allow natural conflict between two factions; creating a barrier that prevents active RvR. Combined with the Rank System, Aion could end up as “League of the Rankers.”

Hence, I’d like to propose some ideas that could improve this Rank system, which has lost its original purpose.

How Rank System can be improved

1. Abyss point reset

Players who gained points from guard farming or system abusing must not go free.

The Admins should be checking player to player to catch such exploiters, but catching them all is realistically impossible.

While it’s true that they exploited the system, the problem was started by the poor design on the Dev’s part.

The fundamentals must be fixed before anything can be done.

Although some innocent players may suffer, point reset has to be done.

Of course, the players should be given a chance to acquire something else with their points before the reset.

Rather than just resetting the points, it’d be just ‘over-encouraging’ the spending of the points.

If this provides a base on which Abyss RvR system can be improved, doing this would be beneficial, rather than destructive.

2. Rank up Quests

There has to be some kind of safe device for Rank System in order to prevent reverse effects.

As of now, if player spends his or her abyss points, he/she loses the rank along with the point decrease. This is a problem.

In order to fix this, some kind of mandatory quests should be given for each rank and a limit should be set to how much points a ranker can acquire in that particular rank.

Since the maximum amount of points will be limited for each rank, it will act as a device against guard farming and ‘system abuse’.

In other words, once a player completes a rank up quest, his/her possible max amount points will be in increased and he/she will be allowed to rank up without doing the quests again if he/she loses the rank by spending points.

What kind of quests should be given as Rank up quests? The answer lies in making use of the existing quests.

Among the existing quests in game, there are quests that ask the player to kill certain number of particular rankers. The developers could simply convert these into rank up quests.

For example, in order to advance from [Rank 8 Soldier] from [Rank 9 Soldier], the player would need do a quest that requires him to kill certain number of [Rank 9 Soldiers] on the opposite faction. Doesn’t it sound perfect for rank up quests?

If infiltration type quests would be added into higher rank advance requirements, it’d prevent high rankers avoiding RvR, also providing a base for high rankers to meet up with each other so they can fill their quest requirements.

Although it’s rather forceful, it would also encourage high rankers to aid their faction more.

Is a player fitting of the title ‘Commander in Chief’ if he ignores his faction in need of help?

3. Varying the acquirable amount of points from NPCs and Abyss mobs according to rank

Currently the points dropped by the NPCs are greater than the points dropped from most players, which basically lead to players farming the fortress guards for points.

Other than the ‘system abuse’, this method is the easiest way for players to acquire points. It is also far safer than actually killing players for points. Hence this method is used by most of the high rankers.

While this is hard to do in a server with an active Abyss, it’s no problem for players who already achieved high rank.

Today, they are using their transformation skills to do NPC farm runs around artifacts and fortresses.

When the Rank system should be PvP-oriented, it is currently most easily achieved through PvE, and maintained by PvE. This doesn’t make any sense.

The amount points dropped by NPCs and Abyss mobs should be decreased for high rankers, discouraging NPC farming and encouraging them to participate in RvR.

4. Flexible Rank system

While each server has fairly similar number of players on each faction, the amount of hardcore players varies, leading to faction imbalance.

Therefore Rank system must be improved to adapt to each servers’ needs.

The requirement for advancing in rank should be lowered for the losing side.

The buff currently bestowed to the faction with less key points controlled, ‘Divine Blessing – +15% damage” should be correctly applied to the faction with less Rankers and less total abyss points.

5. As the devs originally intended

Even if all the bright ideas here are implemented, it will be of no use if Aion fails to create an environment fitting for such changes.

While Aion’s overall game play should be leaning toward RvR participation, Aion’s current ideology evolves around separation. Because of such structure, there’s less chance for players to PvP in the fields, which is unfitting for an RvR game.

While the Abyss was designed to be the main stage of RvR, people are avoiding to even go there. Currently, the Aion RvR consists of mere ganking, high lvls slaughtering low lvls, and taking over quest zones to interfere with other players’ questing.

The current scale of conflict between two races are so tiny that it could be described as pathetic. Improvement is urgent.

If Devs could come up with ways to fix these issues along with improvements for the rank system, Aion will be reborn as an amazing game.

World’s First Commander in Chief came to reality in 루미엘 server

In order to gain Abyss ranks or to purchase Abyss items, one must participate in Abyss activities, such as killing enemy NPCs or players or doing quests in the Abyss.

Starting from [Rank 9 Soldier], your rank will increase by a level as you hit certain point requirements. Once you get to [Rank 5 Lieutenant] you start acquiring ‘high-ranker skills’ and you gain more abilities as you go past that rank.

Dec. 22 2008, 하야덴 from 루미엘 server achieved the world’s first [Rank 5 Lieutenant]. Today, he has almost 1.2m points, very close to the final rank [Commander in Chief] – a rank that only one person may obtain in each race.

Once he gets to the final rank, all of his existing Abyss abilities will be upgraded a notch and he will be given 2 more abilities that are unique to the final rank: [Abyssal Hail] and [Abyssal Execution]

List of Abyss Skills

Transformation: Guardian V
Transforms self into an avatar for 20 minutes. During the duration of the transformation, the player resists all state impairing effects, the max HP is increased by 156,000, the max MP is increased by 312,000, the HP regen rate is increased by 200, the MP regen rate is increased by 800, the movement/flight speed is increased by 30, and does additional damage if attacking a player.
Casting: 6 seconds
Cooldown: 1 hrAbyssal Shock I
Stuns up to 18 targets around the player for 5 seconds
Casting: Instant
Cooldown: 90 seconds
Cost: 25,400 MPAbyssal Hurricane IV
Does 1,615~1,675 physical damage to up to 18 targets in 20m vicinity of the player
Casting: Instant
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Cost: 11,900 MPAbyssal Reflection I
For 1 minute, reflects up to 600 damage for each attack from targets within 5m radius
Casting: Instant
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Cost: 21,400 MPSummon: Abyssal Spirit II
Summons a spirit next to the target in 20m range that does magic damage to up to 6 targets within 20m radius
Casting: 2.5 seconds
Cooldown: 90 seconds
Cost: 16,500 MPAbyssal Hail I
Does 1,715~1,775 physical damage to up to 18 targets within 30m radius around the player, and affected targets will receive additional damage from attacks.
Casting: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 2 minutes
Cost: 37,700 MPAbyssal Execution I
Afflicts 10,489 magic damage to a target in 30m range after 5 second timer
Casting: 2 seconds
Cooldown: 5 minutes
Cost: 59,000 MP

[Damage may differ depending on character stats]

Considering how powerful a high ranker can be, it must affect a lot of players. Jan 12, the day 하야덴 achieved the final rank, I went to interview the players on what they think of this event.

Not that different – Elyos

Just judging by looking at the areas controlled, it seemed that Elyos players were doing okay against 하야덴.

I met with players who told us that they’ve fought 하야덴 several times on the field before he achieved the final rank; 월터 and the players he partied with during the encounter: 오반, 에르휘나, and 애교.

Q. What do you think about [Commander in Chief] showing up Asmodian side?

오반: Nerf plox.. (laughs)

월터: Certainly not happy to see it. I’d congratulate him but I’d like to ask him not to go on a slaughter. It’s really hard once he shows up and breaks thru 프리뭄.

애교: Just concerned that it’s not going to be a fair fight

Templar 월터

Q. Ever fought 하야덴?

월터: I actually met him several times just today. I noticed that he’s using a new skill [Abyssal Execution]. If I wasn’t prepared for it with [Divine Armor] (Increases max hp by 50%, greatly increases resistance to all impairment effects), I probably would’ve gotten 1 shotted. I think he got 3x stronger than he was back when he was [Rank 5 Lieutenant]. It’s not that we can’t beat him at all. It’s just matter of finding him. Like I can probably beat him if he’s not transformed.

Q. How’s the fight when he’s transformed?

월터: I used to tank him so other people could run to safety. I dunno if it’s because I drop a lot of points as [Rank 2 Soldier] or because I bothered him a lot, but he usually comes for me first.

He showed up for a fortress siege some time ago. He was transformed already of course. There was about 40~50 of us there. We tried to take him down but it didn’t go too well. Really hard when he recovers 50% hp instantly every now and then.

애교: It’s basically not possible to kill him when he’s transformed.

에르휘나: Tried several times in groups, never got him down. The cleric DP skill thing has 2000 DP cost and 1 min cooldown. DP is really easy to come by when you’re cutting thru players. I bet Templar would also make an overpowered Guardian if [Divine Armor] works during transformation as well.

월터: Just.. run away. Not much we can do these days.

에르휘나

An Elyos player 아소카 said that it doesn’t matter much for people who don’t go to the Abyss, but it must be very annoying to people trying to quest or level up in Abyss.

He also told us how he once went to quest after capturing an artifact with his party, when 하야덴 came by himself and captured it. He stated that he didn’t change much other than the fact that he gained a few more skills.

An Elyos Templar 빛s said that “The game is more fun when you have a goal,” explaining how “a rival makes you wanna play harder”.

Many people commented on the imbalance of the Guardian tranformation: “Is NCsoft going patch first, think later?” “Needs to be patched immediately.”

Some are also saying that guardians are overpowered just because their DP skill applies literally during transformation, such as Cleric’s DP heal.

Some also stated that guardians make up for the lack of end game content, providing a goal for max levels to go for.

Other than that, some players said “He was already too strong I can’t even tell how much stronger he became” “Currently there’s a lot of people who achieved [Rank 5 Lieutenant] through point abuse. If more illegitimate overpowered guardians pop out, even the regular players will be encouraged to cheat.”

A Guardian Angel – Asmodians

Elyos players congratulated 하야덴 while some expressed concern and worries. How about Asmodian players?

하야덴 is the smaller one

흉악잔인무도 said “It’s ‘really helpful to overall RvR. We usually get a little outnumbered in fortress sieges, but 하야덴 seems to completely cover that when he shows up.”

헬파이어said “I’m happy but kind of jealous at the same time. A lot of PvP breaks out in the western parts, it seems the table turns around every time 하야덴shows up on the field”

놀부 said “I don’t really care. It’s just 1 person for now but I don’t know how Abyss is going to be once there’s 100 of them on each side. I doubt many regular players will be coming to Abyss then. I really hope it doesn’t end up as League of 200”

While I could find more happy players on the Asmodian sides, the number of complaints about PvP balance was the same.

Abyss: This is just the beginning

The recent patch with additions to Abyss gear motivated a lot of players to participate in the Abyss. It can be assumed that the patch was meant by the Devs to create such an effect.

While Devs probably looked at the big overall picture when they designed these Guardians, it’s true that first and every Guardian is creating a large barrier for regular players. Especially, if they become concentrated in 1 faction, the effect will be even worse.

Even if each faction gets an equal number of Guardians, regular players will find that they mean very little in those fights of the giants, which will just lead into people losing interest in the Abyss.

Guardian: the ultimate weapon

However, seeing how the future is uncertain, shouldn’t change start happening so Aion doesn’t end up as 100vs100: League of Guardians?

He first did it at lvl 35. That Templar you see in party was just to enter the instance (need 2 people minimum) When he posted this and people went “wow video or it never happened”, he did it again at lvl 37 and actually posted a frap.

I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m not gonna be posting too many stuff for a week or two. I just hit lvl 80 on WoW and my guild sucked me into heroics/raids. Figured I should let people know instead of letting them visit my blog for nothing. Now if there’s any amazing/critical news, I’ll get on it, but for now, maybe LD’s new blog will suit your needs : )

This is a very old translation and is most likely outdated. Stop linking it as if its the current numbers. Just appreciate it as one of my past contribution to the community please =]I don’t want to delete my old translations as I go.

Someone actually went out of their way to add up all exp you can get from quests for Elyos.

The total exp refers to the total amount of exp you need to level.

The quest exp refers to the amount of exp you can get if you complete every single quest in game that you can get at that level listed at Powerbook from Aion official homepage. The OP did not include abyss/Poeta(?) quests. It refers purely to the exp given as reward upon turning in. I was also told that this chart is missing several quests. Just take this chart as a general outline.

The grind exp refers to the exp you’d have to get by grinding mobs in order to fill the remaining exp in order to level.

Lvl 10~20

Lvl 20~30

Lvl 30~44

As you can see, the questing start to fade away after lvl 20, when players complain that more repetitive, grindy quests start to appear, then after lvl 30, its almost grind to level.

During open beta, a Chinese player named MS추풍 hit lvl 30 (max lvl at the time) just in 3 days purely out of grinding mobs with Assassin. He skipped all quests due to him not being able to understand Korean. After retail opened he became the first lvl 45 Elyo. He was 2nd place in the whole game however.

A Korean player named 대망 hit lvl 30 like few hours after MS추풍 did with a Templar. He said that he only slept 9 hrs. He did do quests, as his lvl up screenshot shows that he got lvl 30 with a quest completion.

One week after Aion went retail, a guy named 도왕 hit World’s First Lvl 45 as Assassin. He said it took 18 hours for him to just go from 44 to 45. He said he grinded his way up while dualboxing a chanter for heals.

All credit goes to 레미엘 from AionChosun

Edit – To those going die-hard to discredit this info again. Those missing quests/whatever you are referring to does NOT change the shape of this graph. Group quests? If you are a SpiritMaster or a Ranger it’ll be almost impossible to do them since they don’t want you in parties. I can go ahead and find 10 more articles on how Aion turns into a grindfest after lvl 30 (It might not be grindfest for some, but for WoW players, just killing same mobs over and over without quests is a grindfest). People from l2 are saying its fine. Now some people just to go out of there way to prove that its more softcore in fear that some people will be turned off by the grind part. There’s even players confirming that in the comments. Stop trying so hard. The more you try, the more bad stuff I have to find in order to defend my credibility. You guys are just digging your own grave.

Today, NCsoft announced a patch for Jan 7 when they’ll add the Penalty system to the Bot Report button. As of Jan 7, characters that receive multiple (they didn’t say how many) reports will experience decreased xp/item drop rate.

While many welcomed this new measure against botting, most players are quite unimpressed. Why? This can be answered by asking the L2 players, as Lineage 2 has almost identical system. Did it stop botting? The answer is No.

To me, this just seems like another half-assed announcement just to keep people from rioting. It seems like they’re just stalling for time until people just give up and accept bots as part of game — like in Lineage 2 and Lineage 1.

In order to come up with a solution, first we have to understand the issue. Before people start throwing out random opinions, let me clarify a few things. I’m going to be using WoW and Lineage 2 for comparisons, so if you’re not comfortable with WoW comparisons, then stop reading now.

Botting issues in a game have always been because of 2 reasons: faulty game management and/or high need of game currency. If a game company doesn’t care, cheaters will always cheat regardless of how easy a game is or how unnecessary it is. If a game has an extreme demand for money, like in Lineage 2, people are going to feel the need to bot and ebay. Although many L2 players complain about those things, I doubt they really want NCsoft to crack down on bots or currency trading, as it’ll make the game practically impossible to play.

Aion currently has a bit of both with slighty more emphasis on the first. NCsoft can definitely do better. There’s really no need for talk about gameguard/code or whatever. The bots Koreans use are hardware-based, meaning they are USB drives that you plug into your computer, and they basically press the keyboard/mouse for you.

Like this one

Just 3 GMs per server specialized in bot catching will probably lead to bot-free servers in matter of days. GMs aren’t paid a lot to begin with, and if it’s really about money, I’m pretty sure a lot of people reading this blog are probably more than eager to do it for free. The problem here is that NCsoft doesn’t really know what is good for them in the long run. From a company’s point of view, legit players and botters alike are paying customers. We have to realize that by asking a company to ban bots, we are asking them to give up profit. Botters and gold farmers often hold more than one account, meaning they do pay a lot more than legit players do (comparing 1 botter to 1 legit player). In Aion’s case, botters and farmers actually pay a LOT more than legit players do (1 botter vs 1 legit player), because of the whole 1month300hrs system, meaning u can only play up to 300 hours in a month. If you want to play more, you have to pay the subscription fee again, meaning botters and farmers are not just holding multiple accounts, they are also paying double subscription. Also, someone from my L2 days once said, “Unlike players, bot don’t whine, bitch on forums. They faithfully pay the subs and play the game without complaint.” While NCsoft has to think about legit players leaving, they are also wondering if the number of legit players they gain from a bot-free game is greater than profit gained from botters. At this point, I’m wondering if NCsoft really lacks self-faith to know that their game has far more potential than they think.

While Aion doesn’t have an insane economy like Lineage 2 does, it does place some sense of need in markets. When I say need, I mean the need to go out of your way to earn money. For example, in WoW, there’s very little sense of need among the general population. You do not need to buy stuff in wow so you can play the game. Almost every gear has to be acquired through manual game play. The things you can buy with gold mostly go under the ‘want’ category. Aion PvP is similar to L2 PvP in a sense that you are going to be spamming consumables. In Lineage 2, players call it the CP-spam fights with bsoe escapes. In Aion, it’s HP pot spam fights with flight time potion escapes. The fact that Cleric’s Voice of Destruction can only be removed with a High grade HP pot makes it a crucial item for PvPers. While in the early days it might be debatable as to whether or not avoiding abyss point loss is really worth the pot money, it’ll become more and more clear at endgame when high rank players can lose thousands of points from death. Believe me, those people are definitely going to be spamming pots, and when your opponents start spamming pots, you’ll have to start spamming pots too.

While a lot of your gear will come from questing in the early days, the number of gear rewards decreases at higher levels. It comes down to the lvl 43 Unique weapon quest that takes seven days to complete. It means a lot of AH trading will take place. While it isn’t going to be as out there as Lineage 2, it won’t be like WoW where gear drops just go straight to ‘disenchanting’ (taking apart items for materials for Enchanting skill). Aion also has an enchanting system; a way of improving your gear by adding +s on it. While gear doesn’t evaporate upon failure like in Lineage 2, it does reset back to +0. Once again, when your opponents start coming to the battlefield with +10 gears, many will find themselves doing the same. Aion’s crafting is basically Lineage 2 enchanting system copy/pasted and renamed. The basic idea is this: every crafting has 10% chance to ‘crit’, meaning a chance to get to the next grade. For example, you have to make 100 regular grades in order to end up with 10 green grade items (if we’re strictly talking math). Note that you can end up with less or more. Anyhow, it actually comes down to where making a lvl 45 Unique weapon costs 100million Qinas (again, if we’re strictly going by %s, it could take more or less). That’s not even a fixed number. You could blow 100mil and not even end up with one, crafting is just rolling dice with materials. Crafted gears often come with attack speed increase stat, which was recently proved to be the best endgame setting for melees. Many endgame players will find themselves paying the big bucks for these weapons.

All that boils down to a simple question: how am I going to pay for that? which is generally where a lot of people turn to botting or ebaying rather than putting hours and hours into mindless grinding. Currently, Aion is a game with a gaming style that encourages botting and ebaying.

After looking at what I wrote, it does look rather grim. However, I still dare to have some hope. NCsoft has to have learned something from all those failures in NA/Europe. They do know what they’re doing in Korea, which is why they designed Aion like this. I’m not sure if anyone here knows but any game that opened in Korea that didn’t have L2-like design failed, including City of Heroes and Guild Wars (WoW being an exception). While Koreans complain about ebaying and bots, it seems like most of them enjoy having them(?)

I know that NCsoft knows that NA/Europe and Asian gamers have different styles. They still have few months ahead of them. I hope NCsoft will make the right choices in the future, and that NCWest will have the guts to fight the temptations of illegitimate profit.

DISCLAIMER- This is a very old article. I noticed there’s people still linking it as if it’s today’s news all over the place. NCsoft in Korea is currently having massive lawsuits with botters/bot companies.

200,000 concurrent players on; It’s an achievement indeed worthy of praise. A dream of any Korean game development company was made reality by NCsoft’s Aion. Ever since the Lineage series, countless MMOs came and went; all fading away or self-satisfied with 10,000~20,000 concurrent players.

Then came Aion. Although it was received with great enthusiasm to begin with, it sent a shock wave through the entire Korean gaming market. Despite PC cafes’ boycotts, Aion pushed ‘Sudden Attack’ off its long held #1 most played list. Not only that, NCsoft announced that they have reached 200,000 concurrent players on their servers just 5 days after its release. With such force, Aion also received the Korean Game of the Year Award.

TakJin Kim, the CEO of the NCsoft, receiving the award

Considering that it was released around the same time as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Aion’s success was purely remarkable. However, what if all this success, including the 200,000 concurrent players, is in danger of falling apart?

InVen received a shocking report from a player in a Legion that achieved the first max level title. He told us that Aion was completely taken over by bots, and that the concurrent player statistic was largely because of the number of bots in the game. He also claimed that NCsoft wasn’t doing anything about the bots, hence my investigation began.

Aion is relentlessly adding new servers to keep up with ever increasing number of players. However, the problem was that new servers were especially more prone to bot infestation, and that it came to the point where regular players found it impossible to lvl up. The most recently added server, 토르, was named the ‘Bot-Utopia’ by its players.

A post by G글래머B비욘세 of 토르 server found at official Aion homepage

I can’t say that it’s only us who are suffering from bot infestation, but I’d have to say that no other server is in such a bad state as ours. The fields are completely taken over by bots. I’m saying this with conviction and without exaggeration. As soon as you leave the town, bots showing up on the sides of the roads. Every place that spawns a monster has a bot standing on it.

I was stunned by this sight. The number of bots almost match the number of monsters in the fields. How could this happen? How are legitimate players supposed to lvl? We can’t do anything but give up. It’s not possible to compete.

Why? Because the botters smartly place characters 3~8 levels above the monsters that spawn. The player that’s at the level of the place cannot outdamage bots 3~8 levels above them. If you try, you just end up helping them kill faster. I have to wonder, is NCsoft even capable to stopping this?

A chat with a player at 토르 server

90% of the Elyos are bots

lvl30~38 are almost all bots

not just botting, but 90%of them are using hacks too

the amazing thing is that

NCsoft is doing absolutely nothing

The situation has passed far beyond the point of complaints by few players. 토르 server message board is filled with bot complaints and condolence visits by players from other servers. The fact that a lvl 45 came out just two weeks after server was even created just further proves the severity of the situation.

many condolences

Why are bots so heavily concentrated on new servers? That’s because there is no character creation restriction on new servers. From the botters’ point of view, old servers with more high lvl players and active economy are actually more attractive.

However, most old servers have character creation restrictions due to their high populations, blocking further botters’ from joining them. Currently, accounts with characters on old servers are being sold for 100,000~200,000 won (about 100~200 dollars) regardless of their level or gear. This is because it’s the botters’ only way of entering the old servers.

The max level gladiator who brought up this issue is from 시엘 server, one of the early servers with creation restriction. He stated that there’s about 20% more new servers than old servers and if you suppose that each server has 5,000 concurrent players, and subtract dual-boxers (people that play 2 characters at the same time) and people who leave their character on shop mode, the actual number of active players are actually far less, meaning NCsof’ts announcement of 200,000 concurrent players was exaggerated.

An interview with the gladiator from 시엘 server

When we’re doing the Lvl 43 Asmodian Unique weapon quest and go over to the Elyos side, I always remind my legion members, “Do not hit characters that are botting.”

Why? It’s quite simple. If you hit a bot, they broadcast such an attack on area chat and since enemy players’ presence interferes with their botting, every bot in the area will swarm to their defense. You’ll definitely get to experience these high lvl areas, where most botters bot in 2s.

It’s really not that hard to identify bots. Bots can stand inside each other on the same spot. It’s definitely distinguishable from a regular player that’s 2-boxing. I tried reporting them but when I see them day after day, I just get the feeling that I’m being ignored. I read people’s posts on how they were banned from the official forums for bringing up these issues there. I’m guessing that’s their solution to the problems — deleting posts.

they stand together on the same spot to wait, go out to kill when a mob spawns, then they go back to their original spot again

NCsoft recently made announcements that they’ll deal with bots not just in game but in court as well. They also sent warnings to top 12 bot sales sites that they’ll be prosecuted in court if they don’t stop. On Dec 3, NCsoft CEO TakJin Kim even attended the Game Industry Improvement Debate and discussed ways to stop botting with the secretary of culture.

However, many criticized that these appearances are indeed just outer appearances for the camera. While thousands of players are complaining that there are more bots than regular players in the game, only 720 accounts were banned as of Dec 18. It’s been a month and 20 days since open beta began and a month since Aion went retail. Yet, out of 37 servers, the number of accounts banned for botting totals only 3,062.

New Bot reports get posted almost every second (Bot report forum)

Yet the number of bots caught during half a month = 720

It’s a sharp contrast compared to Blizzard in early days of World of Warcraft, when many hacks and botting programs were running rampant, when Blizzard responded by banning in thousands everyday. If I remember correctly, I remember the new areas lagging immensely due to the thousands of players starting new characters after getting their main characters banned. While the lag was quite unpleasant, Blizzard’s strong actions against hacks worked, and the number of people using them decreased visibly.

It was the same for other Korean MMORPGs. Because bots and Chinese farmers were always leaving their games in ruins, many came up with variety of ways to fight them. For example, Rohan’s cuff system received lots of criticism and left some innocent players victimized, but players were able to see the company’s will to fight the bots.

Right now, Aion has taken up almost no extra measures against bots. While NCsoft is definitely showing a lot of flash in public like no one has ever done before, there’s very little being done in game. Since Aion was designed to target Asian market with high currency value, many predict that these bots and farmers will not go away easily.

Bots and Number of concurrent players, must break their twisted link…

To be honest, the bot issue and the currency trading was there since the beginning of Lineage series. From the company’s point of view, bots, regardless of their illegitimacy, also pay the subscription fee like the regular players and count for concurrent player statistics, so they might have the mindset of “it’s ok if they are paying”.

However, these bots and active currency trading may seem like a positive for the day, but that will not be long lived. Tomorrow, the game will turn into a ghost town where bots and farmers determine everything. The players who played and loved the game will feel lost and betrayed. It’ll shatter everything in the end.

This is clearly not the road for success. This is quite the opposite of ‘Becoming the top MMORPG company acknowledged by the world gaming community and placing Korea as the leading nation in the MMORPG industry’. I really hope that Aion will realize their priorities, and create a game environment where every player would play happily, and become the true #1 game from Korea.

PS. – We haven’t touched on the endless reports on character imbalances. Let’s see an end to the bots first.